On 2nd June 1953, the morning of Her Majesty’s coronation, news reached England’s newspapers of the first successful climb to the top of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. The ascent happened on 29th May and took several days to reach London.

A newspaper from the 2nd June: Coronation day and the day when news of the Everest climb reached London.

Today, 60 years on from the ascent day, The Queen is to attend a reception for the anniversary at the Royal Geographical Society, London.

Returning to Kathmandu a few days after the climb, John Hunt (a Briton) and Edmund Hillary (a New Zealander) discovered that for their ascent of Everest, they had both been knighted into the Order of the British Empire (at the rank of KBE). Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali sherpa who was a citizen of India, was granted the George Medal by the UK.

Hunt was ultimately made a peer in Britain, while Hillary became a founding member of the Order of New Zealand.

Hillary and Tenzing are also nationally recognized in Nepal, where annual ceremonies in schools and offices celebrate their accomplishment.

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